


Bittersweet

by tanarill



Category: One Piece
Genre: Boats and Ships, Dreams, F/M, French Kissing, Kissing, Pirates, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-22
Updated: 2008-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-18 15:50:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18123323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: It's an old story: a young man leaves his home behind to go out and seek his fortune.





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually remember One Piece; I read it for a few years in high school, and this was written as a gift for [Scribe Protra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeProtra/pseuds/ScribeProtra) in 2008. All of this has probably been jossed. I stopped reading One Piece, and honestly do not care. I leave it here as a record of the character sketch.

Usopp was not used to being respected. It just didn't happen on his island, where he woke everyone up mornings by yelling warnings of pirate attack. And then there had been Klahadore, and _actual_ pirates, and there was no time to be a child anymore. He loved his home, but he had a dream to follow.

So he left. So Miss Kaya gave them the Merry-go, a caravel to be their pirate ship. So she smiled her sweet smile and he knew, knew, that she would be all right, even without him to lie to her.

She took him aside, first, and he wasn't quite sure what to say. Thank you didn't quite cut it, sorry didn't convey the right emotions. So he said, softly, "the pirates are coming."

Kaya held a finger up to his lips, silencing him. And then, in a motion so smooth it might have been practiced, they fell into one another. He held her; how could he not? She kissed him.

She did not kiss like a sister, like a friend. She kissed like a lover, all gentle questing and exploration and unsaid declarations that he was, maybe, too frightened to follow deeper. She said what needed saying.

Later, when they had returned to the group, Zoro the swordsman and Nami the navigator and the boy who would be the pirate king, he waved goodbye. Kaya had not told him not to go. He would not have left if she had.

But he would come back.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew. Last week I went to a thing on how to make friends and get jobs. I don't like it, that the process is more about knowing lots of people, instead of being a good scientist. But I am trying to make LinkedIn links, and do mini-interviews with people to expand my network.
> 
> I feel like there should have been a class: "How to be a People-Person When You're an Introvert." Comms as an undergrad did not cut it. I feel like such a class would be very helpful for the kind of people who choose to go to grad school, because let's face it, we're all nerds and very few of us are also extroverts.


End file.
